Tonight’s Pick – Saints vs Packers

The NFL makes its long awaited return tonight with a potential classic involving the Super Bowl Champions Green Bay Packers and the Super Bowl Champs from two seasons ago, New Orleans Saints. A match-up pitting the last two Super Bowl MVP’s Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees. A match-up of two teams that many think will be in the NFC Championship once again. A match-up perfectly made for prime time.

There’s been a lot of talk this week about whether or not the Green Bay Packers will be ready for this game. The reason? The players didn’t hold off-season workouts during the lockout like many others did, including their opponent the New Orleans Saints.

Me, I personally think the people that think the Packers won’t be ready or on the same page are crazy. BUT, this will give us an early indication if teams that did will have an early season leg up. Brees was pretty high on the workouts thinking it would help them have a training camp. Only catch Drew is you did have a training camp.

“We tried to simulate as best we could a normal offseason, albeit it wasn’t at our team facility and we had to make other arrangements on our own and do everything on our own,” Brees said. “The hope was that that would be able to put us into a situation where we felt like we still had an offseason. … It would feel like we were just going to training camp, just like we were every year, but we were a little bit ahead of the game and maybe would give us an edge.”

It will be interesting to see thou. Now to three areas of tonight’s game I want to focus on.

First, the champion Packers are potentially stronger then last season.
The reason is key players returning from injuries. The three main ones are tight end Jermichael Finley, running back Ryan Grant and safety Morgan Barnett. Finley should fit right back into the lineup and go back to being a star in the making. The one who can really help this team thou is Grant.

James Starks took over for the Packers down the stretch but didn’t really impress as the featured back. Well, not till the Packers took on the Philadelphia Eagles in the Wild Card round. In that game he shredded the Eagles defense for 123 yards over 23 carries. After that he wasn’t too impressive but he added that run option back to the Packers game plan, which is what I think helped propel them to the championship.

After losing Grant, the Packers became a pass first offense, a heavy pass first offense actually. Grant should help change that which should make this offense less predictable. And you know what? That’s a scary thought because even with the predictable pass offense they still scored at will.

A key thing to watch tonight is the Packers balance and what the split will between Grant and Starks will be.

Second, Drew Brees and ball protection.

Throughout his career Brees has been great at protecting the ball. His previous career high in interceptions came in 2007-8 when he threw 18 over 652 passes. Well, like I said it was his previous career high. In 2010-11, Brees threw for 22 interceptions over 658 passes. Not too much of an increase I know but the number is misleading.

Brees threw for 20 of those interceptions over the Saints last 12 regular season games. That’s not a pretty number. A lot of people want to talk about Eli Manning get better at protecting the ball but I’d say the same is true for Brees if the Saints want to win another championship.

One of the keys to tonight’s game is going to be ball control. For the Saints to have a chance they have to protect the ball and that means Brees need to watch where he places his passes. If he turns the ball over and gives the Packers free looks on the offensive end it’s going to be a long night for New Orleans.

Third, the Saints blitz.
This one is simple the Saints have to find a way to get to Rodgers. The Saints were one of the most blitz happy defenses in 2010-11, blitzing on 49% of their plays. I don’t see that changing this year with Gregg Williams as the defensive coordinator.

The problem is can they get to the QB? Over the past three seasons Rodgers has been one of the best quarterbacks against the blitz. According, to ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating, Rodgers was 2nd in the league against the blitz. Last season, Rodgers played some of the best blitzing defenses in the league and had an amazing season.

For the Saints to win they’ll need to get Rodgers, I’m not so sure that will happen.

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So as you can tell I’m not too high on the Saints tonight. I focused on three areas and two of those were areas the Saints need to improve upon to win.

I do think this is going to be a very close game and will be an indication of the type of season we’re in for in 2011. Will this be an NFC Championship Preview that I’m not sure of but we got a damn good chance.

Here’s my final score:

GREEN BAY PACKERS 31 – NEW ORLEANS SAINTS 27.

Get the popcorn ready and enjoy the game folks!

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Tags: Green Back Packers, New Orleans Saints, NFL